Tomatoes and Apple Pies

Check out this pic of our grape tomato plant taken today. When we first planted it, we caged it. It over grew that. So, we staked it too. It overgrew that. Eventually, Nick was forced to tie it to some trees to keep it stable.

I have harvested at least 10 pounds of grape tomatoes from this plant. Pint after pint after pint AND I have several pints to go! I wish I could say we have had the same success with the heirloom, but we have not. Harvest has been good but modest there.

I made this delicious soup today with tomatoes from the garden and some additional ones from the local market.

Ingredients

3 lbs. Red Ripe Tomatoes Olive Oil Cooking Spray 1 1/2 tsp. ground pepper 2 tsp. kosher salt 2 tb. olive oil 1 cup onion 6 garlic cloves (minced) 1- 28 oz. can of tomatoes 2-3 cups FRESH basil (I find it is OK if you only have 1 or 2 cups, the more the better though) 1 quart (4 cups) chicken stock

Directions Preheat oven to 400 F. Spray a large cooking sheet pan with olive oil spray. Cut tomatoes into wedges Add salt and pepper and roast for 45 minutes.

In 8 quart stock pot on medium, saute 2 tb. olive oil, onion and garlic until brown. Then, add canned tomatoes, basil and stock. When roasted tomatoes are done, add them, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce temp and simmer uncovered for 40 minutes.

Pulse in food processor in batches. Add salt and sugar substitute (like splenda or purvia) to taste. I usually don't need salt but I do need to add 1-2 heaping tablespoons of splenda. How much you need depends on how sweet your tomatoes are.

Number of Servings: 8 cups (or 4 large bowls).

I made a couple apple pies from local orchard apples we picked this weekend. I made one like a traditional pie and another french style in anticipation of the holidays. I like to plan ahead. It makes the holidays less stressful and more enjoyable when you aren't fretting about making a homemade apple pie when you have 20 other things to do.

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I guess you could say I should have done my research. I made the pie intending to freeze it but I can't freeze the pie like I planned because apparently you should freeze them unbaked. I had already baked the thing when I realized this doing a search on the internet. It didn't stop hubby from enjoying a slice, now it's headed for the trash. For health reasons, these are reserved for only the most occasional celebrations.


I'm going to go ahead and freeze the french version. I think it'll be fine because their is only a bottom crust and I don't think it will suffer texture issues from freezing like the traditional pies. We aren't too sad about the pie, really, there were enough apples leftover that we made a much healthier version of apple crisp in the fridge for us to treat ourselves to this week.